Federal Government Change the Future of Electricity

Offshore wind turbines will line the Atlantic coast; vast solar arrays will cover swaths of the southwestern desert; transmission towers will cradle high-voltage direct current lines and take electricity from the windy Great Plains to the populated coasts. 

 That is the renewable future for the U.S. that the Obama administration seems to envision and, certainly, what Jon Wellinghoff forecasts. And as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Wellinghoff has a better than even chance of making his vision a reality.

Already, FERC is rewriting the rules for new transmission lines, potentially making it easier to permit new electricity-carrying capacity—and, as a result, unleashing the development of more renewable resources. The commission released a new rule on June 17 that would require that mandates for renewable energy—enacted in 36 states nationwide—be taken into account when determining where and when new transmission lines get installed.

Wellinghoff's goal is to enable a near total transformation of the electricity sector, allowing for renewable resources, such as the sun, wind and flow of rivers, to meet a greater proportion of U.S. electricity demand. 

The benefits, according to Wellinghoff, range from "green" jobs to cutting by 80 percent emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change by 2050. And, ultimately, electricity harvested from the wind may be the cheapest form of electricity generation, saving money for consumers.

Renewables offer just 10 percent of total U.S. electricity generation at present, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a proportion that drops to just 4 percent when the dams built from the 1930s to the 1970s are not counted. 

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And even FERC cannot get its landlord—the federal government's General Services Administration—to invest in energy efficiency.

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The benefits, according to Wellinghoff, range from "green" jobs to cutting by 80 percent emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change by 2050. And, ultimately, electricity harvested from the wind may be the cheapest form of electricity generation, saving money for consumers.